Chapter 12
“Come on,” Mikey cajoled. “What’s he going to
say, really? You probably won’t even see him.”
The ache in my pants grew insistent,
throbbing in time with a growing discomfort in my bladder. Pushing
myself up on my feet, I swayed a bit but managed not to fall back
down on my ass. “I have to take a leak,” I announced. I’d worry
about the beers when I came back from the bathroom.
Mikey snickered as he watched me move slowly
toward the door. My head spun in one direction, the room in
another. “I’m locking the door behind you,” he warned. “I ain’t
letting you back in without the booze.”
“Hollow threats.” Somehow I made it to the
door, opened it without knocking myself down, and stepped out into
the hall. Down the dark maw of the steps to my left, silence
yawned. Yes, the game was over. Reaching both arms out in front of
me, I lunged across the hall and hit the door to the bathroom with
my palms. It opened on a clean, empty bathroom with a soft squeal
of hinges. I didn’t even get it closed behind me before I was
fumbling with my zipper, anxious to unload the beer in my
bladder.
Across the hall, I heard Mikey’s braying
laugh and heard the insidious clickas he locked me out.
Angry, I kicked the bathroom door shut and muttered, “Asshole.”
Looked like I was going downstairs after
all.
* * * *
When I had finished relieving myself, I
considered hammering on Mikey’s door until he had no other choice
but to open up. Then I figured Mr. Pierce would hear the commotion
and come upstairs to yell at us, and if Mikey opened the door with
his dad standing in the hallway, Mr. Pierce was sure to see the
empty cans and bottles we’d left strewn across the floor. If I were
going to get caught with beer, I’d rather it be in the act instead
of after the fact. So I settled for hitting Mikey’s closed door
with my fist, which set him snickering inside the bedroom—I know, I
heard him when I pressed my ear to the wood. “You’re dead,” I
growled, my mouth against the door jamb. “See if I bring you a
beer.”
“You better!” Mikey hollered. The closeness
of his voice startled me—he was right on the other side of the
door. I wriggled the knob but it didn’t turn, which meant he held
it tight to keep it from rattling. “You ain’t getting back in here
without at least two beers. I got you some earlier.”
I waited, silent, until I could hear him
breathing; he must’ve pressed an ear to the door, listening to see
if I’d left or not. So I hit the door again, harder this time, and
heard a satisfying “Ow!” Before he could open the door to
retaliate, I hurried downstairs.
The
first few steps disappeared quickly beneath my feet, but halfway
down I paused. The darkness here wasn’t as complete as I had first
thought. The lights in the living room were out, and if I moved a
little to the left I saw the kitchen was dark, as well. But another
step brought me closer to the bottom of the stairs, where I saw a
warm glow of light spread in a small circle from the doorway where
the living room and dining room met. It wasn’t the strong glare I
usually associated with leaving a light on in the room—instead,
this was diffused and low, illuminating only the carpet and not
broadcasting into the rest of the living room. As I crept closer,
one step at a time, I realized that the folding louver doors
separating one room from the next had been pulled shut.
That gave me pause. In all the time I’d been
over Mikey’s, I had never seen anyone close those doors. They
usually stood to one side of the doorway, folded into themselves
out of the way. When I was younger, I used to like to run my hands
up and down the wooden slats, turning them up and down, until Mr.
Pierce yelled at me to cut it out. They made a clattering noise
like tiddlywinks, moving together in one direction or the next. Now
they all pointed down, shutting out the overhead light still on in
the dining room. The glow I saw came from under the door, where the
wood was warped just enough that it didn’t sit flush against the
floor.
Straining to hear anything, I held my breath
and listened. Someone cleared his throat, a discreet sound that
told me Mr. Pierce was still in the dining room. Cards purred as he
shuffled them, and a few poker chips clattered to the table as if
he’d been stacking them out of boredom and they finally fell over.